I’ve finished going through the Department of Transport accident cards (Canada) that were issued from the late 1940s to the mid-1970s. The C-GLEI crash reveals a different pilot, an exact date and a more precise location than the one I listed. N4171A has a new date and N7016C has a revised crash location. The NTSB report lists it as Gibbonsville, Idaho, but other sources say it was at near Lost Trail Pass, Beaverhead County, Montana, or just “near Beaverhead”. For an interesting exercise, look up those two locations online, and you will find that they are not too far apart, and that Beaverhead is right on the boundary between Idaho and Montana. Concerning C-GFPS (BuNo 85460), which started out commercially as N7032C, we still don’t know the first owner, but I suspect it might be Richardson Aviation or one of the Idaho companies. There are also many minor corrections, and I will be proceeding with this for the next little while.

Some time a a reader posted a question about why were there twoaircraftthat crashed near Harrison Lake, BC, 7 July 1961. Eventually I managed to track down a series of Department of Transport (Canada) accident cards that were archived at Library and Archives Canada HERE. These cards cover all types of aircraft, from commercial passenger jets to ultra-lights. There is one pdf per year, and researchers can find cards for Beavers, Otters, TBMs, Stearmans, and many more.

The cards for the first two series of TBMs, FA/FB and FIMx, have been examined, revealing a couple of mistakes erroneously reported elsewhere, including my site, namely that both CF-IML and CF-MSX crashed 7 July 1961 near Harrison Lake, BC. In fact, the correct crash evidence places CF-MSX at that location and date, and not CF-IML. Here is the correct info for CF-IML:

Another interesting fact revealed by the cards concerned a ferry on 20 June 1960 to Quebec from Dunphy, NB, at the end of the spray season, which involved the crashes in two different locations in Quebec of two Wheeler TBMs as a result of encountering the same weather disturbance. These are CF-IMS (see date change at 3) above, and 4) CF-IMT, a crash that was not known to me before this.

I’ve just revised the CF-KCM page by adding some USN and RCN record cards kindly supplied by Noah Stegman Rechtin, a Museum Attendant at the Tri-State Warbird Museum in Batavia, Ohio, which has owned this Avenger since 2004.

I’ve just completed a major overhaul of the site, with every page visited. Many minor edits were completed, and a few images added (and a couple deleted). All links were checked and confirmed (or updated) and links to Aerial Visuals were added to each Avenger history page. I am waiting for Library and Archives Canada to send me accident reports from prior to 1991. There are several other tasks on my list, but that’s going to be it for quite a while! Next task in the New Year: the Stearman sister site.

I’ve made numerous minor changes to the history pages of this TBM site, including correcting typos and checking links. Next to tackle will be the individual aircraft pages, which I hope to do in the next week or two. Cheers from New Brunswick, and I hope all of you continue to enjoy this history archive.

I’ve just added some new images and updates to several U.S. and Canadian Avengers. Most come from images posted to the Facebook sites TBM’s – Mil & Civ and Forest Protection Alumni.

FBEF A new and better crash image.FBQT / N7858C Early images of N7858C as #85.FIMI #601 An image of FIMI dropping retardant in B.C. in the early 1960s.GLEN / N3249G An image and a story of Johnson #A14 N3249G in Spearfish, ND, in 1959, while at the Deadwood fire.GLEP #A11 / N7014C The same story and image as for N3249G plus a very nice image of Ray Greene flying N7014C, posted by his son James.GLEQ #A7 An image of the wreck sitting upright in the river, from James Greene.

I hope you all are enjoying this TBM Avenger Archive. It’s a lot of work, but I still plan to make minor tweaks here and there.